Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Foxes....

This morning when I went to collect the eggs to my surprise there was only 4.... On further investigation I discovered that sometime last night my poor little coop was prayed upon by foxes. Yes, I'm assuming that it was more than 1 as my medium sized flock of 30 has now been depleted to a small one of 10....

You can only imagine how upset I am today, I love my chooks, actually I love all of my animals. I really do try to keep them all safe andreally wish this didn't happen but now that it has there isn't much I can do about it. Tonight I will tie one of the dogs up at the gate and hopefully that will help eliminate further devastation.......

Do you keep chooks??? Have you ever lost any to foxes??? What do you do to stop it happening???

24 comments:

Oh no how awful. Maybe you need one of those special white dogs, cant remember their names but Kate from Foxs Lane has one on her property. They are supposed to be fantastic guard dogs. Can you hatch any eggs to make some little chickens. How awful those foxes are eating them.

That is just awful to lose so many. Our chook house has an enclose roof of wire.. but I have a problem with small bungarra's getting through and getting my eggs and they always seem to know when they are just about to hatch and all that effort from the poor old hen goes to waste.

I am so sorry Jodie that is just the worst feeling. I guess living on a sheep station you have heard the 'If you have live stock you have dead stock' saying a bit by now. We always think its a bit ironic that we keep 1000 chooks and our address is Foxs lane. We have portable solar electric chook fencing but we also haven't lost a chook to a fox since having Maremma dogs. We swear by them for chook protection. We have two and are picking up a third on the weekend. Bren also has a rifle.

We keep chooks. Lost half my tiny flock (1 of 2) when they were still dozy on their night perches and decided this just won't do.

Luckily it seems we are on the foxes night run (foxes have a route so will tend to visit your property at similar times each day) so I broke out the Maximum Security. They sleep and nest inside their house which now contains a large dog crate, heavy gauge grid on all sides and a floor pan to protect their feet, with perches wedged into the bars. I lock them in when they are settled onto the perch at night then open the door again when we get up in the morning so they can start scratching around for the day. The crate because it is secure but lets airflow through seems to work better than I expected when I first put it in there as a ditch attempt not to loose the second one and her newly acquired buddy.

It has been 6 months now and we haven't had any more losses..

It would be harder to do on a large scale but a 4 sided light weight weld mesh should make it possible to make it work.

Bloody dam foxes!!!! Just check that they can't get UNDER the fence somewhere. I lost 8 ducks in one night, not a feather left. We also have a fantastic neighbor who tends to keep them down with its rifle training...get the drift..

Oh, thats horrible! We used to keep chooks in the backyard but we have a large school opposite which houses a colony of foxes; some were taken overnight and it was very distressing to see the trail of feathers down the street the next day. Fingers crossed the dogs are enough to deter the little buggers.

Oh Jodie. That's really sad that they got so many. Some friends had trouble with them ... and managed to kill one of the foxes and strung it up on the side of the coop. Haven't had any troubles since! Hope you can get it sorted quickly.

So sorry to hear about your chooks Jodie.. When we first moved here to our acreage we had a dozen chooks in an enclosed dog proof fence and still foxes got in one night and we lost ALL our chooks in one awful swoop. I was devastated. I haven't the heart to have them again, which is awful as I love chooks. I really feel for you and hope this doesn't happen again.xx

I'm so sorry about your chooks. We lost some with a fox a couple of years ago. The fox climbed double height fencing and took the chooks without leaving so much as a feather.

Now they are locked away each night in the pen, which has netting over the top as well. We haven't taken the netting below ground, but some of our neighbours do that as well. Having our Jack Russell close by may help as well.

Mick also shoots any foxes he sees, and reckons even shooting at them if they are too far away to hit helps keep them away.

How awful, we haven't lost any chooks to foxes (we live in town) but our playful puppy was a little rough with them and we lost them all a few months ago. We won't get any more until we refence the chook yard. We have lost all our eggs to crows though until the neighbor shot a few!!!!

There's nothing worse than seeing the devastation that a fox can do. We had a fox taking our hens in the daytime - right as we were working in the vegie garden next to the chook pen - blasted animal. All we could do was keep our hens locked up all day for a few days until he found greener pastures. So far we haven't lost anymore but I do make sure the girls are all locked in at night just incase someone gets a hankering for chicken legs.

We don't keep chooks (would love to) but my friend does and they had a fox in the hen house only a few nights ago. They lost 4 chooks. I also work with a guy who has lost the whole lot in one night! I guess that's why they say 'sly fox' - you usually don't hear the commotion until it's too late. Sorry to hear you lost so many of your girls,

I know exactly what you are going through.Our chooks are kept in cement bottomed cages that have a small front pen and an enclosed back pen (with nests and roosts). We lock them up at night. Some days they aren't let out till lunchtime or later in the afternoon; and sometimes not at all. It depends if there are foxes about.We have two jack russelll dogs and they certainly help but foxes seem to know when to pick their times to visit as often the dogs are off chasing rabbits when the foxes are raiding the hen house.One day hubby is going to extend the chookyard so they will have a fully enclosed run (netting buried in the dirt and turned out IFKWIM) so on the not safe days the chooks can still get out in the dirt.One other thing. when the foxes come they seem to always take the best chooks.....